Thomas Bailey
Thomas Bailey
life harps
O harp of life, so speedily unstrung!
cutting dust half
Great thoughts in crude, unshapely verse set forth lose half their preciousness, and ever must, unless the diamond with its own rich dust be cut and polished, it seems little worth.
pain destiny chains-that-bind
A glance, a word -- and joy or pain befalls.... How slight the links are in the chain that binds us to our destiny!
dark moon water
Up from the dark the moon begins to creep; and now a pallid, haggard face lifts she above the water-line: thus from the deep a drowned body rises solemnly.
men age middle
At the beginning of the twentieth century barbarism can throw off its gentle disguise, and burn a man at the stake as complacently as in the Middle Ages.
forever speak affair
Shakespeare is forever coming into our affairs -- putting in his oar, so to speak -- with some pat word or sentence.
life age coins
So precious life is! Even to the old, the hours are as a miser's coins!
sleep turns delicate
Turn on its noiseless hinges, delicate sleep!
sleep mystery probing
What probing deep Has ever solved the mystery of sleep?
death-penalty murder intolerance
The fanatic has the courage of his conviction and the intolerance of his courage. He is opposed to the death penalty for murder, but he would willingly have anyone electrocuted who disagreed with him on the subject.
hypocrisy sorrow coins
The ring of a false coin is not more recognizable than that of a rhyme setting forth a false sorrow.
suicide thinking blue
So I sit there kicked my heels, thinking about New Orleans, and watching a morbid blue-bottle fly attempt to commit suicide by butting his head against the windowpane.
memorial-day land tears
With the tears a Land hath shed. Their graves should ever be green.
men boredom speech
The man who suspects his own tediousness is yet to be born.